May 22, 2001

So Ashley won't let me slide on the Hollywood Boulevard Thing.  Drat, drat, damn.  I console myself slightly that by doing this, it looks like I have plans, it looks like I have a life.  If Ethan calls, I'm not gonna be there because I have plans and therefore a life.

Ash has lived in L.A. for two years now and has never walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard.  Sure, she's gone to the Chinese, the El Capitan, the Egyptian, but she's never walked up and down and seen all the shops and looked at every single star on the Walk Of Fame. 

She insists that we buy disposable cameras and water bottles.  I draw the line at knee high white socks and sneakers.  Managed to persuade her that sunglasses would suffice instead of visors.  She takes her bets very seriously.

She insists on starting right at Hollywood and La Brea, and I have to admit, there's a lot of stuff you just don't see unless you're walking very very slowly.  Like the four statues of Mae West, Dolores Del Rio, Dorothy Dandridge, and Anna May Wong.  And there's a place selling pizza every five stores.  And there's a bone thin wacked-out girl in stringy hair who mutters to herself and gets in the first car that slows down next to her.  "A real live prostitute!  I'm so excited!"  Ash says.  "We've shoulda stopped her.  Asked her what the rates are these days.  I SO want to know."

We walk and walk and walk and do the obligatory oohs and aahs in front of the Chinese.  Wonder why Alive Faye's feet and hands are still there.